Britain Turns Aside Criticism About U.S. Treatment of Detainees
Amnesty International called their treatment "cruel, degrading and inhumane" and said, "Degrading treatment of prisoners is a flagrant violation of international law which cannot be justified under any circumstances." Human Rights Watch stated, "The proposed cages are a scandal. The United States should not be transporting detainees to Cuba until it can provide decent shelter."

Both organizations disputed the decision announced by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday that the prisoners would be held as "unlawful combatants", a status that gives them less protection than the Geneva Convention affords prisoners of war. "The U.S. is placing these people in legal limbo," Amnesty said today. "They deny that they are prisoners of war (POWs) while at the same time failing to provide them with the most basic protections of any person deprived of their liberty."

Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent London rights lawyer, called Mr. Rumsfeld's finding "deplorable" and said the United States was abandoning the same Geneva Convention protections that had saved the lives of American prisoners in Korea and Vietnam. He urged Britain "to remind our U.S. allies that the conventions lay down that anyone captured in the course of such a conflict must be presumed to have POW status until a competent court — not Donald Rumsfeld — declares otherwise."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/15/international/15CND-BRITAIN.html